Bart Rules, Bergman Passes

Sunday afternoon brought email alerts from boxofficemojo.com that suggested the citizens of Springfield are legion. “The Simpsons Movie” was on pace to take in $71.9 million for its first weekend. Turned out that number was a few mill shy. The Simpson clan took in $74 million.

That no doubt, had execs expressing feelings quite the opposite of Doh!

And that b.o. news might have led to more familiar ruminations on the successes — and failures — of TV series that go from the small screen to big if not for the sad, life-cycle news from Stockholm, Sweden, that director Ingmar Bergman died.

The death of one of cinema’s masters had me working the phones. My own Bergman expertise is nil. (Arguably, my first Bergman film was actually directed by a guy named Woody Allen– “Interiors.”>) So I sought out the wisdom and pleasure of cinephiles who’d felt the power of Bergman’s work at its college film society heights.

“Of all the great European directors from the golden age of the ’50s and ’60s, Ingmar Bergman, more than any other, influenced my cinematic life the most,” Ron Henderson, artistic director of the Denver Film Society wrote in an email:

“He left an enormous and extraordinary body of work for everyone who loves great art to discover and to revisit. We promise to provide that opportunity at the Starz FilmCenter in the very near future.”

Out on the Left Coast, Telluride Film Festival codirector Gary Meyer took time from putting the final touches on this year’s fest (Aug. 30 – Sept 3) to reminisce about his first Bergman experience.

As a youngster growing up in Napa, Meyer and his family would journey to the Bay area for special film outtings. When he was 11, he saw Bergman’s “The Magician.” The choice seemed sensible: Meyer was a budding master of illusion. The 1956 film about Volger (Max von Sydow) and his Magnetic Health Theater’s played on a double bill with “Wild Strawberries” Meyers recalled.

“We three, my sisters and I, were puzzled about what we were seeing,” Meyer said. “But I remember we came away with this sense we’d really seen something important. It was beautiful –shot in black-and-white. And we certainly weren’t used to seeing black-and-white film.”

The confounding experience made the future film exhibitor want to know more. As a boy, there were trips to the library. As a teen, he screened Bergman in the family barn. Later, as a young college student, there were lots of late nights spent talking about what in the world Bergman had just revealed.

“I think more than any other filmmaker, those screenings resulted in lots of discussions,” he said. Meyers then read a quote taken from Bergman’s “The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography” :

“No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul.”

Film & theater critic Lisa Kennedy likes to watch -- a lot. She also has a fondness for no-man’s lands, contested territories and Venn Diagrams. She believes the best place to live is usually on the border between two vibrant neighborhoods. Where better to apply this penchant for overlap and divergence than covering film and theater – two arts that owe so much to each other yet offer radically idiosyncratic pleasures? In another life, Kennedy was an Obie judge. In this one, she’s been a Pulitzer Prize judge in criticism, an Independent Spirit Award jurist and Colorado’s first member of the National Society of Film Critics.

More than a mash-up of the Running Lines and Diary of a Madmoviergoer blogs, Stage, Screen & In Between offers engaged takes on Colorado theater and film and pointed views on news from both coasts and both industries. Culture lovers, add your voices. Culture-makers, share your production journal entries and photos.